


With a Loaded Gun and a Steady Hand

by tinkerbird



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Canon Relationships - Freeform, Gen, Humanstuck, M/M, Necrophilia, Zombiestuck, badassery, kind of i guess??, semi sadstuck, slayerstuck, sort of, the undead, well not really necrophilia, zombie jake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 00:18:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkerbird/pseuds/tinkerbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you hate your job: assassination of the undead.<br/>It's not as hard as it sounds, but you're sick of losing people. And your teammate's new "condition" doesn't make things any easier.</p><p>Slayerstuck AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a Loaded Gun and a Steady Hand

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if this will ever get read, but I wrote it for me. This is based around a universe of my own creation. So I'm really sorry for bothering you guys.

When staring down the face of almost certain death, a man is left with only two options: To turn and run like a coward, or to stay and fight for his right to live another day. Your name is Karkat Vantas, and even though you stand before a bloodthirsty creature from beyond the grave, armed only with the chain of your own bike, you fully intend to choose the latter. Especially since running won’t do you any good anyway.

Your trusty sickle lies, unfortunately, out of your reach, after you dropped it like the clumsy fool you _totally_ are. In a pinch, though, you were able to partially dismantle your only mode of transportation and create a new makeshift weapon. The ghoul before you lets out a low growl from the back of her throat. She lunges at you, swiping a claw in your direction with a desperate, animalistic hunger. 

You respond quickly, catching her arm with the chain, twisting it. The creature hisses, drawing back her arm and diving headfirst at your throat. You reach out and shove her back by her face—a bold move, no doubt. Even for you. Despite the fact that your weird blood mutation prevents you from changing into one of them, you still would rather not have your hand bitten off.

This situation is pretty much anything but okay. Yes, you can hold this… This, _monstrosity_ off for a while. But for how long, exactly? You can’t fucking _kill_ a ghoul with a _bike chain_ , for god’s sake. A chain can’t destroy a cranial cavity, and that’s the only way to keep this bitch from regenerating.

Basically? You’re fucked.

Oh well, you think. You’ve lived a good life. Actually, no, fuck it, you haven’t. You’ve led a horrible life. You’re a dick to your friends, you do literally nothing but kill things and mope around, you haven’t spoken to your only brother in years… Yeah, no, okay, nothing about your life could even remotely be considered “good”. It doesn’t matter anyway, when the ghoul leans in to rip the flesh from your bare throat. 

You smell the decay on her breath. You see the jagged outline of her teeth behind her dry lips. You hear the sound of gunshots, the soft, dull resonance of bullets smashing open the ghoul’s skull. A spray of coagulated blood hits your face, and the monster hits the grass, never to rise again.

“You should be fuckin’ grateful I decided to come after you, Kar.”

You roll your eyes. “Whatever.” 

You won’t say it now because of your damaged sense of manly pride, but yes. You’re extremely fucking grateful that Eridan Ampora followed your ass on this horrible train wreck of a hunt. If not for him and his .22, you would most certainly have become the unwilling main course for a psychotic moving corpse.

The two of you examine the body, trying to add up in your minds just how long it will take the disposal unit to get rid of the mess before the “day cops” come along. Answer: Much longer than is safe for your team. Jesus Christ, with that close-range a shot, you’re lucky the bullets didn’t go through the ghoul and into you.

“Look at her, Kar,” Eridan says softly. “Shame, ain’t it? What she had to become.”

You sigh. “Jesus fuck, don’t do this again.”

Eridan ignores you. His gaze is solemn, firmly locked upon the dead woman lying on the ground. “I wonder who she was.”

“She probably did too,” you remind him. “Damn it, Eridan, they forget everything once they change. They may talk and look like us, but they’re not. Not anymore. Remember that.” No reply. “You’re thinking about her again, aren’t you?”

“…”

You sigh. “Why do you _always_ do this to yourself? You have to let her go.”

Your friend takes a while to speak again, and when he does, his voice is small and full of pain. “Sorry, Kar. It’s just… She looks so much like…” 

“Don’t say her name,” you say. “Just let her go. Forget you ever even met—”

“ _Fef_.”

A heavy silence falls over the two of you at the mention of your now-dead friend. You turn away, trying to brush it off. “How are we getting home?”

“I walked.”

“Fuck that. I’m calling someone to come and get us.” You start listing in your head everyone you know with cars. “I’m soaked in blood and God-knows-what-else, like hell I’m walking around and making the whole neighborhood think I’m Hannibal fucking Lecter.”

-

 

You and a handful of other freaks were hand-picked by a secret government organization to spend most of your lives training to kill or actually killing the undead, and more importantly, doing it so that “normal” people don’t find out. If they knew that they could be eaten just by walking down the streets, well… Panic. Panic would happen. Widespread, riot-causing, unnecessary panic. 

You like to think your organization has the situation under control, since nine out of ten people don’t change or get eaten thanks to your efforts. But what can you say? People are stupid. They need to be protected from the truth like little babies from hearing curse words. Honestly, though, you wish you’d been kept in the dark, as well. It would have been easier.

There are millions of you, all over the world, but your individual team is small enough in numbers to share a house. There used to be eight of you, but Tavros lost his legs and had to resign, Aradia was… Well, you’d rather not discuss it. And there’s also what happened about a week ago. Your numbers are indeed dwindling, more quickly than you’d like to admit. Now it’s just you, Eridan, your childhood friend Sollux, and the Striders, a pair of third-generation hunters who were bred to kill the un-killable. Nothing suspicious about that. A few college-age guys living together. Roommates. It’s perfectly normal.

Well, if you ignore the fact that none of you have ever taken a single class at any university. You don’t need it; you make bank just from your night jobs as ghoul-slaying badasses to pay the bills and then some. You’re set for life, pretty much. Risking death, mutilation, and severe emotional trauma is the only exchange. Of course, it really only hurts when a civilian gets caught up in the mess.

Feferi was a waitress, working her way through nursing school, and your entire team loved her. Especially Eridan and Sollux. They began this idiotic competition, constantly trying to one-up each other and win her heart, and while it was occasionally amusing, it was mostly just irritating. You were glad when Sollux finally won; not because you were necessarily rooting for him, but because you were sick of watching those two behave like children just to get a girl’s attention.

Eridan was, to your surprise, a good sport about the whole thing. He tried to stay friends with Feferi, but… It’s never exactly easy to be friends with your boyfriend’s archrival. Anytime Eridan said something negative about Sollux, Feferi got mad and refused to talk to him. They fought quite a bit over that sort of thing, and it was during one of those fights that Eridan’s guard was down long enough to let Feferi get attacked.

The ghoul didn’t finish her off. So he had to.

You think that Sollux blames Eridan for what happened. He swears to you that you’re wrong, but something about how Eridan seems to have a harder time with the guilt as time goes on makes you wonder if Sollux doesn’t tell him differently. You’ve noticed that the entertaining, ongoing joke of a rivalry that the two once had is gone, replaced by cold, bitter indifference. They hardly ever speak anymore. It’s like they’ve lost the energy to even hate each other.

It kills you to see two of your closest friends this way, but you can’t change anything. The air temperature drops instantly whenever all of your team is in the same room now. Dave, the younger Strider, always tries to lighten the mood by making some stupid reference or going off on a tangent about something unimportant. It almost always works for Sollux, but Eridan usually just disappears into his room once they start talking. Sometimes you disappear with him. 

Those three are your closest friends, the only three you really wouldn’t mind dying for. The only humans you have any faith in whatsoever and actually enjoy being around. 

…Oh. Yeah. Dirk also. Dirk exists too.

It’s not that you don’t like him. You do. I mean, why wouldn’t you like him? Dirk’s basically a different version of Dave, and Dave, as mentioned above, is one of your best friends. Actually, he’s the slightly better version of Dave. He talks a lot less, and he’s not a total jackass. Well, granted, Dirk’s also painfully blunt, and his obsessive tendencies tend to drive you up the nearest wall. Still, he’s not too bad. 

You’ve just never been all that close. You never really needed to be. You still don’t; Dirk has friends, just in other places. He’s on good terms with the disposal unit, from what you’ve gathered. He also hangs around the science department a lot. And he used to have a boyfriend, right in your very own house. On your very own team.

That is, until he died a month ago.

Now Dirk’s sort of a fifth wheel in your group. You feel kind of bad, but the again it’s not really your fault. He spends a lot of his time disappearing to God-knows-where, sometimes for days at a time. You don’t know where he goes, and you don’t think anyone ever will, or if it even matters. What he does isn’t any of your business, especially now that he’s lost someone so close to him (something you’ve thankfully never had to go through). It’s reached the point where even Dave doesn’t seem too worried anymore.

It’s not like Dirk didn’t always lurk around like this; actually, living with him has always been exactly like having a cat. He stays around when he wants attention, but when he doesn’t, he just sort of goes off and does his own thing. Back when Jake was still around, Dirk was a lot more social, but now you hardly ever see him at all. It’s like when your team lost Jake, you lost Dirk too.

One day, when Dirk goes out to do whatever he does when he disappears, you decide to follow him. You can’t let him know you’re trailing him, or he might give up and go home. He’s always been very secretive about where he goes at night, and he’d probably not want you finding out. Well too fucking bad. You’re curious.

Dirk goes way out in the woods, for whatever reason. That’s weird… There’s nothing around. Is he trying to find a place to be alone, or…? What’s happening here? He looks like he’s looking for something in particular, but what?

Then you see it. A small, abandoned-looking shed amongst the trees, barely noticeable in the dark. It looks as though no one’s been near it in years. Strange, but this is Dirk. It’s oddly fitting that he’d run off to somewhere like this to sulk.

He goes inside, and you start to turn around, satisfied that you’ve found out his little secret and content to let him be. But then you hear voices from inside the shed. Strange… Someone’s in there with him. At first, you think with a smirk that he’s started seeing someone in secret. You wouldn’t blame him; between Dave and the girls on the med staff, the poor guy would probably be scared off within seconds, and then what? Dirk would die alone, probably. Not everyone could handle your team’s shit--Jake was a special case.

But then you start to recognize the other voice more and more. A sinking feeling builds in your stomach, and you hope to god that what you hear isn’t who you think it is.

You sneak closer, taking a look through a dilapidated window, into a room lit by only a small camping lantern.

Shit.

“Sorry it took me so long to get here.”

A slight laugh. “No, no, I understand.”

“Did you get bored?”

“A little. But, well, that’s expected.”

“Sorry.”

“Honestly, Strider, it’s _fine_. Really. Although I sometimes wish I could go outside…”

Dirk reaches up and very lightly touches the other’s cheek, giving it a soft, loving stroke. “I know… I’d take you out. You know I would. But what if someone we know saw us?”

You don’t believe what you’re seeing here. Your housemate and your other very dead housemate are one some kind of hellish nightmare of a date in the middle of fucking nowhere. Jake English is dead. You watched him get a huge hunk bitten out of his arm by a ghoul. You watched him die. But… you never saw what happened to the body. There was never a funeral.

Alright, so yes, it’s quite obvious what happened. Sometimes people die. Sometimes they come back. It’s not common, but it’s not unheard of. The better question is, why would Dirk Strider, the guy you’ve personally seen decapitate ghouls with little movement, no hesitation, no facial expression whatsoever, keep one of them hidden away in a shack? 

Better yet, why hasn’t the ghoul in question attacked him? Is he waiting for a good time? No, because what better time than now, when Dirk takes him into his arms? You fully expect Jake… No, you won’t call him that. It’s not Jake, not anymore. You expect the _ghoul_ to take a chunk out of Dirk’s neck, but to your surprise, he doesn’t. He hugs back. He even lightly nuzzles against Dirk’s hair like a fucking kitten.

What the actual _fuck_ is going on?

The ghoul still looks remarkably like your fallen friend: same face, same eyes, even the same smile. He’s paler now, yes, his eyes glassed over with death, and his signature big teeth now end in razor-sharp points. But he won’t become the emaciated walking skeleton that you’re accustomed to taking down until the later stages of infection. He’s not fully dead yet… But when he is? That’s when Dirk will _really_ be in danger. And if the poor, damaged fool can’t see that something’s wrong with this now, who’s to say he won’t still be in denial then?

You step back slightly, your foot accidentally triggering some kind of alarm inside the shed. Oh right. This is Dirk you’re dealing with; of course he’d be prepared for this exact moment. He and the ghoul stay perfectly still, and the lantern is turned off almost instantly. You step around to the front of the shed, forcing the door open.

“What the fuck is going on here?” you demand.

Dirk jumps to his feet in front of his once-lover, staring you down as if daring you to come closer. You can still clearly tell how terrified he truly is. “What are you doing here?”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

The ghoul sighs, resigned. “He knows, Dirk.”

Dirk seems to shrink, looking down at the floor like a scolded dog. He doesn’t move from that spot.

You sigh. “What’re you doing, Strider?”

“I know what this looks like,” he says slowly. “And… Actually, yeah, that’s exactly what it is. But—”

“But nothing,” you interrupt, making him flinch slightly. Wow… You never thought you’d live to see that. “Do you even know what you’ve gotten yourself into?”

“You don’t get it. Jake’s not like the others.”

“No,” you argue, “I don’t think _you_ get it! Just because you decided to get into necrophilia or some shit doesn’t make him any different from any of the other ghouls we kill every day.”

Dirk glares coldly at you. “Don’t say that in front of him.”

You roll your eyes. “What am I gonna do? Hurt his feelings? Oh, but wait a second. I just remembered something. _Ghouls don’t have any._ You’re nothing but a fucking meal to him now, or have you forgotten what got you into this mess in the first place?”

“Say that again. I _dare_ you.”

“Oh, are you gonna sic your little _boyfriend_ on me?”

Dirk frowns, his eyes narrowing. “You’re upsetting him.”

You run a hand through your hair in frustration. “I don’t even see why I have to argue about this with you. He’s going to kill you. Don’t you get that? Jesus, Strider, what was your IQ again? I’m guessing at least high enough to comprehend how fucked up this is.”

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought there was any risk to my own or the team’s safety.” He sighs. “I don’t know… Maybe I would. But there’s another. Like Jake. In the Midwest sector. Apparently he had the gene—the gene that causes our resistance to the virus. But he was in the small percent of people with that gene who changed. Like Jake.”

“So?”

“So, he’s still doing things for the organization. He’s exactly the same as he was before, he feels things, he has friends. And I’m _telling you_ , Jake is _the same as this fucking guy._ But you won’t listen.”

You let out a sigh. “Okay. All right. So let’s say this guy from the _Midwest sector_ exists. And you don’t know for sure he even does. How do you know all that shit applies here?”

“You don’t understand, Vantas. And I don’t expect you to.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” you ask, almost offended. “Are you saying you know better than me? Fuck you, Strider. It doesn’t matter what I ‘understand’; I’m your _leader_. Okay? You listen to _me._ And what I’m saying, right now, is that you need to get rid of this…this…”

Dirk scoffs at you, the smug asshole. “See? You can’t even call him a ‘thing’ or a ‘monster’ or whatever you were going to say. Because deep down, you know that you’re wrong.”

You grab him by the shoulders, forcing him to look at you. “Strider, look at me. This isn’t fair to you. This isn’t fair to him. This isn’t fair to Aradia and Sollux, or Eridan and Feferi—”

“Bullshit,” he interjects. “Feferi wasn’t one of us, and Aradia’s body was practically destroyed. Jake _is_ one of us, and his body’s in perfect condition. So what the fuck is the problem here?”

“The problem is he’s fucking dangerous.”

“Call him that again, and I’ll—”

“ _Dirk Strider_.” Jake sighs, a function you had no idea ghouls were even capable of. “Honestly, could either of you let me speak for myself?”

Dirk backs down some, nodding. “Sorry.”

“I don’t blame you for thinking I’m dangerous,” Jake admits, shrugging. He looks down at the floor of the shack, a bit of…Wait, is that _sadness_? in his eyes. “Because, frankly, I probably am. I’m a ticking time bomb, with this virus inside of me. If nothing else, I’m a carrier. And I don’t want to cause more trouble than I already have.”

Dirk looks genuinely surprised at this statement. “Wait… You aren’t actually saying you want to…?”

Jake looks away. “My time’s been up for awhile, love. It’s better this way.”

Wait. Wait. Wait for just a goddamned fucking second here. Ghouls don’t do that. Ghouls don’t accept their fate and _let_ people kill them for the greater good. No. A ghoul’s only motivation to do anything is survival. That’s it. They are literally 100% instinct. Instinct, with just enough brainpower to hold a conversation. They would never agree to let someone put them down just so that someone they once loved could be safe, it’s too…

…. _human_ ….

You don’t know how to deal with this information. So you just sigh, putting your face in your hands with a frustrated, mumbled, “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Really?”

“Whatever. But I swear to God, Strider. If he bites your dick off, don’t you _dare_ say I didn’t warn you.”

 

-

 

You hate losing people. You’re supposed to be a leader; leaders don’t let their teammates get hurt. That’s why you were so adamant about the whole Jake thing… You weren’t about to lose yet another comrade if you could help it. And you definitely were not going to watch Dave fucking Strider crumble apart from losing his brother.

But now you don’t know how you feel. Jake’s not going to hurt anyone anytime soon, which should be a relief. At the same time, it makes everything overly complicated. How long can Dirk keep him a secret? What will happen if they’re found out by any of your people? Bad things. Bad things, probably. Jake will either be killed, or experimented on somehow. And you’re the only one who can help him stay hidden. You sigh. Fuck everything in your life.

Terezi from administration drops by one day. You don’t miss her in the slightest; you were in training together back when you were kids. She was your first cute little kid crush, but now that you’re both adults, you have a sort of awkward friendship-rivalry thing going on. Hey, you never said it wasn’t complicated.

“New assignment from the boss,” she says, handing a yellow folder to you. “And by ‘the boss’, I mean, _the boss_.”

“The boss?” you ask. “What’s he want with us?” You’ve never met The Boss, capital letters, in your life. You take most of your orders from the regional head. You don’t know what the highest ranking member of your organization would want from you.

“New living arrangements,” Terezi replies with a smirk. “He gave specific instructions on which team got the addition.”

Great. A new guy. Just what you needed: another plot twist. “Why us?”

“He didn’t say. I guess you just got lucky.”

You sigh, opening the file to at least see who the person is. You almost drop the papers in shock.

_Jacob H. English._

You don’t know how the boss found out, or why he was so okay with the situation, but at least that’s one less thing to deal with.

 

-

“Now, Karkat, you must understand that despite Jake’s current…er, medical condition, he still has feelings just like anyone else. As such, I cannot allow you to dismiss his struggles as an individual any further, and though I cannot speak for Jake himself, I…” You stop listening to him after that.

Now you remember why you stopped visiting your brother; he’s obnoxious. Every time he feels like someone’s rights are being imposed on, he always has to swoop in and save the day like a social justice Batman. Fuck your life. No, seriously.

“Kankri, what the fuck? I just asked if it’s okay for them to kiss like that. There’s no need to fly the fuck off the handle.”

“Karkat—”

“It’s quite all right, Mr. Vantas. I was worried about that myself, actually…”

Dirk shrugs. “I haven’t changed so far. I guess we’ll find out.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, okay. Because I really need two ghouls on my team.”

Kankri lets out a loud, offended gasp. “Karkat, we discussed this. You will not use any more of that necrophobic language; it is rude, and, not to impose upon your constitutional right to free speech, I will simply not stand for that kind of racial prejudice.”

“Racial prejud—He’s undead! That’s not a fucking _race_ , you arrogant fuck truck! It’s a state of being!”

“Yes, and that state of being does not make him a lesser life form than the rest of us.”

“This is ridiculous. He is not. Even. Fucking. Alive!!”

“Be that as it may, Jake still deserves the same treatment as you or I. Now, the correct term would be ‘living impaired’, or one could also refer to these individuals--” You slam your head into the nearest wall. “Oh, I am terribly sorry. Have I upset you in any way, brother? In that case, let us attempt to determine the cause of your distress so that I may avoid certain topics in the future.”

You want to scream.

But you see how happy Jake is to be back, and you see how happy the team is to have him back (especially Dirk). And you decide that no matter how fucked up this is, the important part is that everyone’s okay. As a leader, that was your only concern from the start.

Now only if you could get rid of Kankri…

**Author's Note:**

> If you want more of this AU, leave a comment stating such. If you want me to go the fuck away and never write this shit ever again, let me know that too, and I'll leave you alone forever.


End file.
